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Here we go. GPU in the cloud. By Subscription.
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[Shawn Miller] “Even worse, we pay the highest rates for broadband access in the world. How much do you pay for a 20Mbps connection? In the US, the average is around $50.00 a month.”
I recently worked on a doc about Net Neutrality and ISPs in the US and the situation is beyond a train wreck. While watching the interviews, as well as doing my own research because somethings get pretty complex, I had to get up and take a break at times because I got so steamed learning how screwed up things are.
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[Andrew Kimery] “1. Many programs use the GPU for basic operation so having a strong GPU locally is still worthwhile (which is why Apple doubled down on GPUs in the nMP). “
FWIW I have the top nMBP with 4gig gpu and I have an iMac late 2012 27″ with 2gig GPU. 4 years apart and 2gigs of GPU apart and there is zero discernible difference. And I’m playing back very complicated timelines full of custom motion projects and such. In my mind the nMBP seems a little less responsive scrubbing around and such.
I’m literally opening the same project on the same raid. First plugged into the nMBP, then plugged into the iMac.
I’ll do render tests at some point.
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https://BretFX.com FCP X Plugins & Templates for Editors & Motion Graphics Artists -
[Andrew Kimery] “I recently worked on a doc about Net Neutrality and ISPs in the US and the situation is beyond a train wreck. While watching the interviews, as well as doing my own research because somethings get pretty complex, I had to get up and take a break at times because I got so steamed learning how screwed up things are.”
Wow, that bad… there used to be five or six ISPs in town, now there are two. It would be nice to hear the inside story of how it got that way. I know what happened in broad strokes, but the details have got to be interesting.
EDIT: I meant to ask if your doc had been released yet.
Shawn
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Man, we finally got 30Mb speed about two weeks ago. Before that, the fastest
we could possibly get was 3Mb (and we were paying a lot more than $50/month for
it!). Looking at what people say they are paying makes me shake my head. People
sure are spoiled…..$50/month for 20Mb expensive? Wow.Gabe Strong
G-Force Productions
http://www.gforcevideo.com -
[Shawn Miller] “Wow, that bad… there used to be five or six ISPs in town, now there are two. It would be nice to hear the inside story of how it got that way. I know what happened in broad strokes, but the details have got to be interesting.
EDIT: I meant to ask if your doc had been released yet.”
The doc has not been released yet. AFAIK they are trying the festival thing now but it should come out this year (I’m not totally in the loop on it as I had to leave the project early due to prior commitments).
The details are interesting (and many times just flat out unbelievable that it’s actually playing out like this). The most troubling thing is that in the relatively near future our ISPs will be a single point of connection for nearly all forms of media and communication and users are about to be on the losing end of the battle. What started out as egalitarian and user driven is now being being carved up, walled off, and extorted by gatekeeping media giants (both old and new). We are in the Information Age which means controlling the creation and distribution of information/data (whether it’s a phone call, a web page or a video-on-demand) is where the power lies and where the money is to be made.
I’m going to dismount from my soapbox before I rant the night away, but I’ll leave with one last tidbit; A crazy thing to think about is that it’s 2017 and most Americans have a wider choice of dial-up ISPs than broadband ISPs.
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[Gabe Strong] “People sure are spoiled…..$50/month for 20Mb expensive? Wow.”
Not so much spoiled as getting gouged less than you are for Internet access. In many other first world countries $50/mo will get you gigabit speeds plus TV and/or phone service. I think the typical the markup on data costs by US ISPs is something like 2000-5000% and the ‘wholesale’ cost of data keeps getting cheaper as computer equipment gets faster and less expensive.
Of course if you live in the sticks you are pretty SOL because ISPs aren’t required to provide service they way telephone companies are.
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[Bill Davis] “Still thinking you’re going to need that massive CPU/GPU combo hard-soldered in your machine in a few years?”
I’ve been using cloud-based render power since 2012, and I still like have a lot of local power (not hard-soldered). In production, they’re different uses cases. Local compute power gets you interactive preview; remote compute power gets you accelerated renders for tasks that can be computed in parallel.
[Bill Davis] “Or will you be able to do all your actual editing without it – then just link up for when you need it for a super-res render or an export?”
Please spare a thought for your brothers and sisters in creative spaces adjacent to editorial! I wouldn’t be surprised if you love editing on your iPad in a couple of years — and why not? Arranging pieces of media and playing them back is no longer the computational challenge it once was. But other spaces have different needs.
I’ve been saying for a while that we’re going to see workstations are going to become more niche, and thus more expensive… and that they’ll still be worth having for some markets.
[Bill Davis] “OTOH, I guess now you can look forward to now paying monthly for your software AND your hardware – whether you’re using them every day – or just once a month. The future is coming on strong!”
Some folks even let you subscribe monthly for training. And if both parties get something valuable out of it, why not?
Let’s note, though, that this service is not priced on subscription; it’s priced on metered consumption, like a utility. That seems a fair way to sell the service of access to a limited good.
Walter Soyka
Designer & Mad Scientist at Keen Live [link]
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
@keenlive | RenderBreak [blog] | Profile [LinkedIn] -
[Walter Soyka] “Some folks even let you subscribe monthly for training. And if both parties get something valuable out of it, why not?”
Have NEVER had a problem with rental or subscription. Have used services like Lynda.com since they started.
Only have a problem if somebody either makes it unnecessarily more difficult to Un-Subscribe -then to subscribe … or locks a subscriber out of their own intellectual property if they fail to pay.
Don’t do that – and I’m totally cool with it all.
: )
Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
The shortest path to FCP X mastery. -
I dunno…..so you are saying $50 a month is totally fair when it comes to CC but
terribly expensive when it comes to high speed internet access??
????Gabe Strong
G-Force Productions
http://www.gforcevideo.com -
Forgive me for raising an old topic, but do you think it makes sense now to build a powerful PC for calculations? Or is it better to use a cloud GPU service like AWS or https://puzl.ee/gpu-cloud?
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